Sacred Tradition
In everyday speech "tradition" means old custom. The Church uses the word for the faith that Christ gave to the apostles and the apostles handed on, a gift that includes the Bible and was never set against it.
For Inquirers
Before there was a New Testament, there were people who had known Jesus. After he rose from the dead, his friends traveled from town to town telling what they had seen and heard, and the people who believed them told their own children and neighbors. They baptized, they broke bread together, and they prayed (Acts 2.42). The letters and Gospels that Christians read today were written inside that life, some of them years after it began, and the people kept on praying, baptizing, and teaching while the writing was still being done.
Tradition is the Christian word for that passing-along. It means simply "what was handed on." The word sounds like a box of old customs, but the Church means something nearer to a grandmother teaching a child the words of a prayer she learned from her own grandmother. Nobody locked the prayer in a drawer. Somebody said it every night and somebody else learned it by listening, and years afterward someone wrote it down. The Bible is the best-loved part of what was handed on, and the Church that handed it on is the same Church that gathered the books, reads them aloud every Sunday, and tries to read them as the first Christians did.
How the written Bible and the handed-on life fit together is one of the oldest disagreements among Christians, and it is hard to hold in the head at first. Many Christians say that the Bible alone is the final measure of everything, and they say it because they love the Scriptures and want nothing standing between ordinary people and God's word. Orthodox Christians love those same pages, and they answer that the Bible was never meant to stand alone, any more than a letter is meant to be read without the voice of the one who wrote it. Both sides would agree that the faith came from Jesus and his friends and that nobody is free to invent it. What they dispute is how the faith is kept safe.
Overview
- Sacred Tradition (Greek paradosis, "a handing-on") is the faith that Christ gave to the apostles and the apostles gave to the Church, kept alive in the Church by the Holy Spirit in her teaching, her worship, and her life.
- Scripture is the written heart of Tradition. The Church counts the Bible as part of Tradition and not as a rival source beside it, because the apostles' message was preached before it was written, and the Church that received the message also collected the books and reads them in worship.
- Tradition adds no new doctrines to the apostolic faith. It keeps that faith, and when someone challenges it, the Church puts the old faith into words that leave no room for the challenge, as Nicaea I did with a single word.
- Tradition shows in ordinary practice: the Creed, baptism by three immersions, the sign of the cross, prayer toward the east, and the Divine Liturgy.
Summary
Sacred Tradition is the Church's name for the faith that Christ gave to the apostles and the apostles handed on to others, and the Greek word behind it, paradosis, means "a handing-on." St. Paul uses the vocabulary of handing over and receiving for the gospel itself. He tells the Corinthians that he delivered to them first of all what he had received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15.3), and he tells the Thessalonians to "hold the traditions which you were taught by us, whether by word or by letter" (2 Thessalonians 2.15). The sentence takes it for granted that the apostles taught in two ways and that both bind, and Paul wrote it to people who had his letter in their hands and had also heard him speak.
What the Church gathers under the word is wider than the Bible and includes it. The Seventh Council, defending the holy images, numbered among the things the Church has received the Book of the Gospels, the image of the cross, the pictorial icons, and the relics of the martyrs.[^nic2-received] John McGuckin, a modern Orthodox historian, says that Orthodoxy sees no decisive difference between Scripture and tradition in the theology of revelation, only a single Sacred Tradition, "first manifested, and given its most authoritative and governing expression, in the New Testament itself," though not restricted to it.[^mcg-single] The faith that Orthodox writers call Holy Tradition is therefore one stream with several channels: the Scriptures, the Creed and the councils, the writings of the Fathers, the Liturgy and the sacraments, the canons, and the icons.
Before any Gospel was written, the apostles' preaching was summed up in a short confession of one God, the Son who became man, and the Holy Spirit, and the Church repeated it at every baptism. When teachers appeared who quoted the same Scriptures for opposite conclusions, bishops such as Irenaeus and Cyril of Jerusalem pointed to that confession as the setting in which the Scriptures can be read. Basil of Caesarea, pressed by opponents who demanded written proof for the Church's way of glorifying the Spirit, answered that some teachings of the Church are kept in writing and others delivered by the apostles in the Church's mystery, and that "both of these in relation to true religion have the same force." De Spiritu Sancto 27.10[^bas-27] Vincent of Lérins gave the Church a test for telling the old faith from a newcomer,[^vin-2] and the apostle tells Timothy that what was committed to him is guarded "through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us" (2 Timothy 1.14). Zwingli, the Augsburg Confession, and the Council of Trent each speak to the question, and the last sections let their own texts speak.
Why It Matters
Every reader of the Bible, whatever he thinks of Tradition, has relied on someone's decision about which books belong in it, and the Fathers answer that question by pointing to what the churches had received and read aloud. Augustine, a Western Father, argues with Manichaeans who wanted to use the Gospel to prove their founder an apostle. He asks what they would say to someone who did not yet believe the Gospel, and he answers for himself: "For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church." Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus 5.16[^aug-manich] The line is aimed at his opponents in a debate, and it shows what he took to be the ground on which he himself accepted the Gospel. A second matter is what the books mean. Vincent lists teachers from Novatian to Nestorius who each expounded the same Scriptures in a different way, and he asks what rule could choose among them.[^vin-2]
The Arians of the fourth century had a verse for their position, Proverbs 8.22 as Athanasius reports it, "The Lord created me a beginning of His ways unto His works" (Proverbs 8.22), De Decretis 3.83 and they pressed it on every audience. Athanasius asks them first: "let them tell us, from what teacher or by what tradition they derived these notions concerning the Saviour?" De Decretis 3.82 He then answers the verse from Scripture itself, comparing what is made with what is begotten and reading the words of Proverbs as said of the Son when he became man.[^ath-decr13] The opening question is a jab, and the answer is exegesis, but the jab shows what Athanasius expects of any teaching about the Saviour: that it can say where it came from.
Paul gives the matter a harder edge when he tells the Thessalonians to withdraw from every brother who "walks in rebellion and not after the tradition which they received from us" (2 Thessalonians 3.6). The charge is disorderly living, and Paul measures that disorder against a tradition the Thessalonians had received, so that he speaks of it as something a believer could keep or abandon.
How It Applies
An Orthodox Christian meets Scripture inside Tradition every week. The Gospel is read aloud in the Divine Liturgy, and the homily that follows interprets it, so that the text arrives already set within the Church's worship.[^mcg-homily] The Creed is recited in the same service, and the Liturgy of St. James has the priest begin it with "I believe in one God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God: and the rest of the Creed."[^lit-james-creed] When the priest recalls the supper he repeats the words that Paul says he "received from the Lord" and delivered (1 Corinthians 11.23), so that the hearer receives, in the act of worship, what Paul says was handed to him.
A believer who signs himself with the cross, faces the east to pray, or stands for prayer on the Lord's Day is keeping practices that Basil lists among the Church's unwritten customs. When a book or a preacher offers something new about God or about Scripture, Tradition teaches the question Vincent asked: has it been believed everywhere, always, by all?[^vin-2] The question does not shut off thought, though it does set its bounds. Tertullian, who insists on the rule of faith, grants that "So long, however, as its form exists in its proper order, you may seek and discuss as much as you please." Prescription against Heretics 14.1 In the same chapter he says that faith is deposited in the rule and that curious skill must "give place to faith." Prescription against Heretics 14.6[^tert-14]
The Word Paul Used
Paul describes what he did with the gospel in the vocabulary of handing over and receiving. The Greek verb is paradidomi, "to hand over," and the thing handed over is a paradosis, a "tradition."[^behr-verb] The content he hands over at the center of the gospel is anchored in the Scriptures already: he "delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15.3). The Apostle is passing on a message that points to the books Israel already had.
St. John Chrysostom, commenting on that verse, notices that Paul does not say "I taught you" or "I was taught" but uses the same pair of words again, and he draws out the lesson that Paul was "establishing… that one ought to introduce nothing from one's self." Homilies on First Corinthians — Homily 38 2.37[^chrys-38] A handed-over message has a giver behind the one who delivers it, and the deliverer's task is to pass it on whole.
Paul praises the Corinthians for remembering him and holding "firm the traditions, even as I delivered them to you" (1 Corinthians 11.2), and Chrysostom, commenting on the praise, says that Paul "used at that time to deliver many things also not in writing." Homilies on First Corinthians — Homily 26 2.18[^chrys-26] Later in the same chapter the account of the Lord's Supper is itself a handed-over thing, since Paul "received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you" (1 Corinthians 11.23).
He tells Timothy to hold the pattern of sound words that he has heard from Paul and to guard the good thing committed to him through the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 1.13-14), and then he sets out the chain in a single sentence: "The things which you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit the same things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2.2). The verse has four links, Paul, Timothy, the faithful men, and the others they will teach, and the message passes through all of them as the same message. St. Jude calls his readers to contend for "the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1.3), which describes the faith as a gift already given in full, to be guarded and handed on.
Even the Evangelist places himself inside the chain. St. Luke begins his Gospel by saying that many have set down an account of the things fulfilled among us, "even as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word delivered them to us" (Luke 1.1-2). He then says that he has traced the course of all things accurately from the first and writes in order for Theophilus, so that Theophilus may know the certainty of what he was taught (Luke 1.3-4). St. John says plainly that his book is a selection, since Jesus did many other signs "which are not written in this book" (John 20.30), and that the world itself could not hold the books if everything were written (John 21.25).
The Gospel Before the Gospels
The writers who came after the apostles show that the preaching came first. Papias of Hierapolis, whom Irenaeus calls a hearer of John, tells why he collected the sayings of the elders. Eusebius, who preserves the preface, observes that Papias does not claim to have heard the apostles himself and says he received their words from those who had followed them. He asked those who had attended the elders what Andrew or Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, or Matthew had said, "For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice." Fragments of Papias 1.31[^papias] Papias went looking for the apostles' teaching in the memory of those who had known them, and he preferred that memory to books.
St. Clement of Rome, writing to the Corinthians, gives the line of transmission in a sentence: "The apostles have preached the gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ [has done so] from God." Letter to the Corinthians (Clement) 42.1[^clem-42] Christ was sent by God and the apostles by Christ, he says, and the apostles, assured by the resurrection, went out proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand and appointed bishops and deacons for those who would believe. The handing-on began with a commission, and the Church's ministry belonged to it from the first. Apostolic Succession takes up that thread.
McGuckin observes that there is no unmediated testimony to Jesus apart from the disciples' witness, and he calls the illumined faith of the disciples "the seed bed from which all testimony, beginning with the written Gospels themselves, arises as an act of confession."[^mcg-confession] On this account the Gospels are the Church's preaching put into writing.
What the apostles handed over was short enough to be learned and confessed, and Irenaeus gives it in a form that can be set beside later creeds. He calls it "the order of the rule of our faith, and the foundation of the building, and the stability of our conversation," The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 6.1 and he names three points: God the Father, uncreated and invisible, the Creator of all things; the Word of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, who became man at the end of the times; and the Holy Spirit, through whom the prophets prophesied.[^iren-dem6]
In his great work against the heretics of his day, Irenaeus says that the Church has received this preaching and this faith from the apostles and their disciples and, though scattered through the whole world, keeps it "as if occupying but one house." Against Heresies — Chapter 10 2.1[^iren-110] Tertullian gives a version of the rule in the Prescription against Heretics and says of it that Christ taught it and that it raises no questions among believers except those that heresies introduce.[^tert-13]
The rule belonged to every believer, because every believer confessed it at the font. Irenaeus speaks of the man who keeps "unchangeable in his heart the rule of the truth which he received by means of baptism," Against Heresies — Chapter 9 4.36[^iren-19] and the church order attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, whose authorship and date are both disputed, describes the candidates answering three questions of faith, about the Father, about Jesus Christ born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and crucified under Pontius Pilate, and about the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, and the resurrection of the flesh, and being baptized once after each answer.[^hipp-21]
Cyril of Jerusalem, instructing candidates in Lent, tells them to keep the Creed in the memory and not to write it on paper, and he explains where it comes from: "the articles of the Faith were not composed as seemed good to men; but the most important points collected out of all the Scripture make up one complete teaching of the Faith." Catechetical Lectures — Lecture 5 12.7[^cyril-5] The Creed is drawn from the Scriptures and held within the Church, and the Church hands it on by reciting it.
Reading the Scriptures Within the Faith
A creed learned at the font gave the early Church a way to read the books that were soon in many hands. Irenaeus takes the case of teachers who built their systems out of the words of the Lord and the apostles. He compares what they did to a mosaic of a king, made by a skilled artist from precious stones, which someone then takes apart and reassembles as the likeness of a dog or a fox, pointing to the same stones as proof that it is still the king. Of these teachers he says that "they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth." Against Heresies — Chapter 8 1.3[^iren-18] The stones belong to the Church as much as to them, and the question is who knows the shape of the king.
Tertullian meets the same maneuver with a legal move. Heretics, he says, put the Scriptures forward and thereby win some and weary others, so that before they can use the books it must be seen to whom the books belong. His conclusion is stark: "Our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the Scriptures." Prescription against Heretics 19.1[^tert-19] He means that a dispute over what the Scriptures mean cannot be settled by quoting them at each other, since both parties can quote, and that the first question is where the true rule and faith are to be found, because there the true Scriptures and their right exposition will be found also.
In the same treatise Tertullian does not tell Christians to avoid the Scriptures, and he says that the Scriptures are the Church's own and that she has nothing in them to take away or alter.[^tert-37] He says also that what the apostles preached can be proved only through the churches they founded, by declaring the gospel to them directly, "both vivâ voce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by their epistles." Prescription against Heretics 21.4[^tert-21-voce] The apostles taught first by voice and then by letter, and the churches that received both are the witnesses to what the letters mean. He addresses the heretics as trespassers on an estate and answers for the Church that she holds the title deeds from the original owners: "I am the heir of the apostles." Prescription against Heretics 37.14
The Scriptures themselves admit that they can be misread. Peter says that in Paul's letters "there are some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unsettled twist, as they also do to the other Scriptures, to their own destruction" (2 Peter 3.16). Vincent of Lérins asks the obvious question about all this. If the canon of Scripture is complete and sufficient of itself, as an imagined objector says, what need is there to add the Church's interpretation? He does not deny the premise, and he answers that "owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense," Commonitory 2.6 and lists the schools that read it differently, from Novatian to Nestorius.[^vin-2]
Heretics quote the Bible freely, Vincent adds, and the devil did so against the Lord in the wilderness (Matthew 4.6).[^vin-26] The apostles and the false apostles cited the same Psalms and the same prophets, and "when they began to interpret in different senses the passages which both had agreed in appealing to, then were discerned the guileless from the crafty, the genuine from the counterfeit." Commonitory 25.27[^vin-25]
Orthodoxy does not conclude that the faithful should read less. The Jews of Beroea were praised for "examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so" (Acts 17.11), and Cyril of Jerusalem, who also asks his people to learn from the Church which books are Scripture, tells them to "acquire and keep that only, which is now delivered to you by the Church, and which has been built up strongly out of all the Scriptures." Catechetical Lectures — Lecture 5 12.1[^cyril-5] The sentence joins the two things in one clause, so that what is delivered by the Church is also what is built from all the Scriptures. In the passages above the Scriptures belong to the Church and are read within her faith, and The Right to Private Judgment sets out the Protestant case for the believer's final judgment on what they mean, with the Orthodox reply.
The Book the Church Handed Down
The Church that handed on the faith also handed on the list of the books, and Cyril and Athanasius say so. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Lenten lectures, tells his hearers to "learn also diligently, and from the Church, what are the books of the Old Testament, and what those of the New." Catechetical Lectures — Lecture 4 33.5 He adds that the apostles and the bishops of old time, the presidents of the Church who handed down these books, were far wiser and more pious than the reader, and that a child of the Church must not trench upon her statutes.[^cyril-4]
St. Athanasius, whose thirty-ninth Festal Letter of 367 gives a list of the New Testament books that matches the twenty-seven we have, introduces it in the language of Luke's preface. He says that he is fully persuaded about these books, "as they who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, delivered to the fathers," and that he will set before his readers the books included in the canon, handed down, and accredited as divine.[^ath-fl39-3] The eyewitnesses in that sentence are the source of what was delivered to the fathers, and the list is offered as something received, framed with the same verse that begins the third Gospel.
He then says of these books that "In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness," and that no one should add to them or take from them.[^ath-fl39-6] The same letter names other writings that are not in the canon but are appointed by the Fathers to be read to those who are newly joining the Church and wish to be taught the word of godliness, and it condemns the apocryphal books invented by heretics. The bishop of Alexandria sorts the writings in circulation by what the Church had received.
The African church ruled that nothing should be read in the churches under the name of the divine Scriptures except the canonical Scriptures, and it lists them. The canon is attributed to the Council of Carthage in 397, and Hefele traces it to an earlier council at Hippo in 393. It reaches us in the African code compiled in 419, and its closing sentence shows later editing: the words "because we have received from our fathers that those books must be read in the Church" belong to the sentence that tells the bishops to inform Boniface, who did not become bishop of Rome until 418, and Westcott therefore assigns that sentence to the compilers of 419.[^carthage] Even so, the edited canon presents the list as the books that the African churches had traditionally read. The sixtieth canon attributed to the Council of Laodicea gives a list of its own, though its authenticity has been doubted, and the lists of Athanasius, Cyril, and Carthage do not match one another exactly.[^laodicea] Canon of Scripture tells how the Orthodox Church received all of this together and sets the three canons that stand in the world today side by side.
When the question is which books belong to the Bible, these Fathers answer by pointing to what the apostles, the bishops after them, and the churches had handed down and read aloud. That answer is Tradition at work on the Bible's own borders.
Does Scripture Suffice?
If the Church named the books, a reader may fairly ask whether the books are enough, and the Fathers do speak of their completeness. Athanasius, in his treatise against the pagans, writes that although "the sacred and inspired Scriptures are sufficient to declare the truth," Against the Heathen 1.5 there are also other works of the blessed teachers, written for this purpose, from which a reader gains some knowledge of the interpretation of the Scriptures, and that still, since he does not have those works at hand, he must write out for his reader what he learned from them.[^ath-cg1]
John of Damascus opens his Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by saying that all things "delivered to us by Law and Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists we receive, and know, and honour, seeking for nothing beyond these," An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith — Book I 1.10 and he ends the thought with the resolve to abide by them and not to overpass the divine tradition (Proverbs 22.28). An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith — Book I 1.14[^dam-exp1]
Vincent's imagined objector calls the canon complete and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, and Vincent lets the premise stand and gives the reason for adding the Church's interpretation, which is the depth of the text and the variety of readings.[^vin-2] In each of the three the completeness of Scripture and the Church's handing-on appear together. Athanasius sets Scripture's sufficiency beside the teachers who explain it, Damascus seeks nothing beyond what was delivered while holding to the divine tradition, and he is the same Father who says below that much of what the apostles handed down is unwritten. The Synod of Jerusalem, below, states the pairing in an official form. The content of revelation is what was delivered through the Law, the Prophets, the apostles, and the evangelists, and the Church seeks nothing beyond it. She keeps that content in the way it was delivered and reads the Scriptures in the way she received them.
Timothy has known the holy Scriptures from infancy, and "Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3.15-16). The same Timothy is told to commit what he heard from Paul among many witnesses to faithful men (2 Timothy 2.2), so that Paul's instruction to him has both halves.
A seventeenth-century Orthodox synod, answering Calvinist teaching, put the relation in a single article. The Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 confesses that the Scriptures are God-taught and must be believed "not otherwise than as the Catholic Church hath interpreted and delivered the same," since every heresy receives the Scriptures and perverts them. It then says of the Church's witness that it is "not of inferior authority to that of the Divine Scriptures," since one and the same Holy Spirit is the author of both.[^dositheus] The article is cited here as the official statement of one Church in one century, in the vocabulary of that century.
What Was Never Written Down
If the books are complete in what they teach, a reader may wonder about the practices that the books never mention, such as why Christians sign themselves with the cross or turn east to pray. Basil of Caesarea argued for unwritten tradition under pressure. His opponents refused the Church's way of glorifying the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son because it lacked a written text, and Basil says that the real aim behind the demand was higher than a phrase. They wished to level apostolic tradition with the ground, and so, as he says, they "clamour for written proof, and reject as worthless the unwritten tradition of the Fathers." De Spiritu Sancto 10.17[^bas-10]
He answers by pointing to what the Church already does. Beliefs and practices preserved in the Church reach us in two ways, some from written teaching and others delivered in a mystery by the tradition of the apostles, and the two have the same force for true religion. To cast out the unwritten ones as small matters, he says, would be to "unintentionally injure the Gospel in its very vitals." De Spiritu Sancto 27.12[^bas-27]
"What writing has taught us to turn to the East at the prayer?" De Spiritu Sancto 27.14 Basil asks, and the questions that follow undo the demand for a text. Who taught in writing the sign of the cross for those who have trusted in the name of the Lord, and which of the saints left in writing the words of the invocation at the showing of the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing? The Church blesses the water of baptism and the oil of anointing and the one being baptized, and she baptizes three times and renounces Satan and his angels before the font, and Basil asks on what written authority any of it rests.[^bas-27]
Of the renunciation of Satan and the other customs of baptism, Basil says that the Fathers guarded them "in a silence out of the reach of curious meddling and inquisitive investigation," De Spiritu Sancto 27.23 since the dignity of the mysteries is best preserved by silence, and he recalls that Moses did not open every part of the tabernacle to everyone. From this he draws a distinction between the two kinds of teaching: "Dogma and Kerugma are two distinct things; the former is observed in silence; the latter is proclaimed to all the world." De Spiritu Sancto 27.31[^bas-27]
Basil's list is more than his own opinion about a few customs. Long before he wrote, Tertullian had answered a man who demanded a written command for a Christian practice with a list of his own. He did so in The Chaplet, a work of his later years, when he was moving toward Montanism, and it is better read as evidence for practice than as a judgment of the whole Church. At baptism the candidate renounces the devil in front of the congregation and is immersed three times, then tastes milk and honey, the Eucharist is received before daybreak, and in every ordinary action of the day the Christian traces the sign upon the forehead.[^tert-chaplet] Tertullian's verdict on the demand for a text is brief. "If, for these and other such rules, you insist upon having positive Scripture injunction, you will find none. Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as their observer." The Chaplet 4.1 The Chaplet 4.2 The church order attributed to Hippolytus, with the disputed authorship and date noted above, lays out the same baptism, with the renunciation of Satan, the oil of exorcism, the oil of thanksgiving, and the threefold immersion with its questions of faith, so that Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Basil all describe the same practices as the Church's own.[^hipp-21]
John of Damascus drew on Basil in the defense of the icons. In the first of his treatises he cites Basil's work on the Holy Spirit by name and applies it: "It is not in writing only that they have bequeathed to us the tradition of the Church, but also in certain unwritten examples." Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons — PART I 0.622 Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons — PART I 0.623 He asks how anyone knows where Calvary and the tomb are, since the Gospel records that the Lord was crucified on Calvary and buried in a tomb hewn from the rock, but it is unwritten tradition that identifies those places, and he asks the same of the three immersions at baptism and of prayer toward the east.[^dam-1]
In the Exposition he writes of prayer toward the east that "this tradition of the apostles is unwritten. For much that has been handed down to us by tradition is unwritten," An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith — Book IV 12.14 An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith — Book IV 12.15 and in the chapter on images he adds that the apostles handed down much that was unwritten, citing Paul to the Thessalonians and to the Corinthians.[^dam-12] His case for Icons rests on that principle, and St. John of Damascus sets it among the rest of his defense.
Chrysostom says the same of Paul's letters when he comments on 2 Thessalonians 2.15:
"Hence it is manifest, that they did not deliver all things by Epistle, but many things also unwritten, and in like manner both the one and the other are worthy of credit. Therefore let us think the tradition of the Church also worthy of credit. It is a tradition, seek no farther." Homilies on Second Thessalonians — Homily 4 0.106 Homilies on Second Thessalonians — Homily 4 0.107 Homilies on Second Thessalonians — Homily 4 0.108[^chrys-2th]
The verdict answers one question, whether the Thessalonians, who were being shaken, must be content with what Paul delivered by letter alone. It does not give every custom the force of apostolic teaching, and the test Basil applies shows how a practice is recognized as apostolic. Of the doxology he defends, Basil says that it is a word found "abiding in unperverted churches," De Spiritu Sancto 27.48 that it did not originate with him, and that he received it from the man who baptized him, and he compares the witnesses of a long and unbroken use to the witnesses a court would hear.[^bas-29]
Everywhere, Always, by All
Basil's test for an unwritten practice was its pedigree, and Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Vincent state the same test for the faith as a whole. Irenaeus noticed that the same faith lived in churches far apart. "For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same," Against Heresies — Chapter 10 2.3 he says, and he lists the churches in Germany, Spain, Gaul, the East, Egypt, and Libya as believing and handing down nothing different.[^iren-110]
Tertullian turns the same observation into an argument. If the churches had erred, they would have strayed in different directions, since no accident that befalls many men produces one result, and so, as he says, "when, however, that which is deposited among many is found to be one and the same, it is not the result of error, but of tradition." Prescription against Heretics 28.4[^tert-28]
Vincent of Lérins, a monk of the fifth century, reduced the observation to a rule. He asked men eminent for sanctity and learning how he could tell the truth of the Catholic faith from heretical pravity, and he says that almost without exception he received the same answer: the faith must be fortified "first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church." Commonitory 2.3[^vin-2]
Within the Church itself, he says, one must hold "that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all," Commonitory 2.10 and he explains the three marks in turn. Universality means confessing the one faith that the whole Church throughout the world confesses. Antiquity means not departing from the interpretations that were notoriously held by the holy ancestors and fathers. Consent means adhering, within antiquity itself, to the agreed definitions of all or almost all of the priests and teachers.[^vin-2]
If a small portion of the Church cuts itself off, Vincent says, the Catholic prefers the soundness of the whole body. If a novelty infects the whole body, he cleaves to antiquity. If error is found in antiquity itself, he prefers the decrees of an ancient general council to the rashness of a few, and if no council has spoken, he consults the opinions of the ancients who remained in the communion of the one Catholic Church and holds whatever was taught "not by one or two of these only, but by all, equally, with one consent, openly, frequently, persistently." Commonitory 3.11[^vin-3] The standard is the consent of the whole Church over time.
That standard keeps Tradition from becoming a pile of every opinion a saint ever held. Athanasius, who cites Origen in defense of the Nicene faith, says that what Origen wrote "as if inquiring and by way of exercise" must not be taken as his own settled view, and he quotes only what Origen declares outright. De Decretis 6.40[^ath-decr27-orig] The Seventh Council, in its letter to the emperors, anathematizes the "idle tales of Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius" alongside the heresies of the earlier centuries.[^nic2-origen]
Origen himself, in the preface to his work on first principles, separates the points "clearly delivered in the teaching of the apostles" De Principiis — Preface 4.1 from the points on which, as he says, the teaching of the Church is not distinguished "with sufficient clearness," De Principiis — Preface 5.5 such as the origin of the soul and the nature of the angels, and he leaves those to be searched out.[^origen-pref] The Church later condemned some of Origen's own opinions, as the Seventh Council's anathema above shows, so he is cited here only for the distinction. The Orthodox distinction between Dogma and Theologoumena, the first defined and binding and the second the permitted opinions of holy men, sorts matters in a similar way.
Growth Without Novelty
A faith held everywhere and always still has to be explained to people who were not born into it, and the question is where explaining ends and inventing begins. Irenaeus sets the boundary first. The faith being one and the same, "neither does one who is able at great length to discourse regarding it, make any addition to it, nor does one, who can say but little diminish it." Against Heresies — Chapter 10 2.7 The learned and the simple hold the same thing, and the learned can explain more of it. Irenaeus lists what a gifted teacher may do: bring out the meaning of the parables, explain God's patience with the angels who fell, and say why the Word became flesh at the end of the ages.[^iren-110]
"Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ's Church?" Vincent asks in his chapter on development, and he answers himself: "Certainly; all possible progress… Yet on condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith." Commonitory 23.3 Commonitory 23.4 Commonitory 23.6 He compares doctrine to a body that grows from infancy to maturity: the child's limbs are small and the young man's large, the man's maturity brings out parts that the Creator had already framed in the child, and the infant and the young man are the same person.[^vin-23]
Councils, he says, have never had any other aim than to see to it that "what was before believed in simplicity should in future be believed intelligently." Commonitory 23.36 His charge to the Church's teachers carries the whole principle in a sentence. They may engrave and fit the gems of divine doctrine and add splendor to them, and they must "teach still the same truths which you have learned, so that though you speak after a new fashion, what you speak may not be new." Commonitory 22.28[^vin-22]
Chalcedon says of the One Hundred and Fifty Fathers at Constantinople that they declared their doctrine of the Holy Spirit "not as though they were introducing anything that had been lacking in their predecessors, but in order to explain through written documents their faith concerning the Holy Ghost against those who were seeking to destroy his sovereignty." The Definition of Faith 7.3[^chalc]
The Council of Ephesus decreed that it is unlawful for anyone "to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different… Faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicæa." The Canons 7.1[^eph-7] That canon forbids setting up a different faith as a rival to the Nicene, and the Seventh Council's acclamation states the rule in both directions: "We keep the laws of the Fathers. We anathematize those who add anything to or take anything away from the Catholic Church." The Decree 9.7 The Decree 9.8[^nic2-accl]
New words do not break the rule when they are new ways of saying the old thing. Athanasius defends the Nicene homoousios against those who objected that it is not in Scripture: "even if the expressions are not in so many words in the Scriptures, yet, as was said before, they contain the sense of the Scriptures, and expressing it, they convey it to those who have their hearing unimpaired for religious doctrine." De Decretis 5.32[^ath-decr21]
The occasion for the word was a particular evasion. The Arians read every scriptural phrase the bishops proposed, "from God," "like," "always," as true of creatures also, and the bishops were driven to gather the sense of the Scriptures and say it again, more distinctly, in words the Arians could not turn aside.[^ath-decr20] Nicaea I tells that story. John of Damascus, in the third of his treatises on the images, asks his opponents where in the Old Testament or the Gospel the Trinity, consubstantiality, the three persons, or the two natures of Christ are set down in so many words, and answers: "Still, as they are contained in what Scripture does say, and defined by the holy fathers, we receive them and anathematise those who do not." Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons — PART III 0.22 Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons — PART III 0.23[^dam-3]
The Spirit Who Hands On
Someone has to keep the deposit unchanged across so many churches and centuries, and the answer begins with Scripture's own words about the Holy Spirit. The Lord promised that the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, would "teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you" (John 14.26), and that the Spirit of truth would guide the disciples into all truth (John 16.13). Paul tells Timothy that the good thing committed to him is to be guarded through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us (2 Timothy 1.14).
Tertullian, arguing that the churches could not all have been led astray, ties his case to those promises. He asks his reader to grant, for the sake of argument, that the Holy Ghost, "the Steward of God, the Vicar of Christ," Prescription against Heretics 28.1 neglected his office and let the churches believe differently from what he was preaching through the apostles, and then he asks whether it is likely that so many churches, and such great ones, should have gone astray into one and the same faith.[^tert-28]
The Liturgy keeps the same belief. In the Liturgy of St. James the priest, in the prayer that asks for the Spirit to be sent upon the gifts, addresses the Spirit as the one "that spoke in the law and in the prophets, and in Your New Testament; that descended in the form of a dove on our Lord Jesus Christ at the river Jordan… that descended on Your apostles in the form of tongues of fire."[^lit-james-epiclesis] The Spirit invoked over the bread and wine is the Spirit who spoke in the Scriptures and came to the apostles, and the Church prays to the one who spoke in them.
Vladimir Lossky, as OrthodoxWiki reports, described Tradition as "the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church,"[^ow-lossky] which ties it to the Spirit's present work among the faithful. Fr. Michael Pomazansky, in his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, puts the relation to Scripture in a sentence: "Divine Revelation is given to us in the whole of Sacred Scripture and in Sacred Tradition, the preservation, instruction, and true interpretation of which are the duty and concern of the holy Church of Christ."[^pomaz]
John Behr notes that the verb Paul uses of delivering the supper and the gospel, "to hand over," appears again in the Gospel of John, where Jesus says "It is finished," bows his head, and "gave up his spirit" (John 19.30). Behr suggests that, since the mother and the beloved disciple stand by the cross in this Gospel alone, one might perhaps understand the action as Christ inclining his head toward his mother and "handing over" or "traditioning the Spirit."[^behr-spirit] The reading is a modern theologian's and Behr offers it tentatively.
The Church that results is a living body, and McGuckin writes that as the Word is incarnate in the flesh of Jesus, "just so is the Spirit articulated in the illumined medium of the church: that body of believers whom the Spirit lifts to confess Jesus as Lord."[^mcg-spirit] The Spirit who spoke in the Scriptures is the Spirit who lives in the people who hear them read.
Paul calls the assembly of the living God "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Timothy 3.15), and Tertullian says that doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches, "those moulds and original sources of the faith," Prescription against Heretics 21.5 must be reckoned true.[^tert-21] The Church describes the Body whose life Tradition is.
Worship as the Carrier
Much of what Tradition hands on is handed on by being done, and worship is where this shows most plainly. McGuckin, describing the second-century homily of Bishop Melito of Sardis on the Passover, says that it shows how the Church's understanding of Scripture went hand in hand with the formation of worship structures, and he adds: "Liturgy is the engine of development in all this."[^mcg-engine] The development he has in view is the shaping of the Church's worship. The Psalms became the Church's prayer book, Old Testament readings were gathered around the account of the supper, and the one who presided at the Eucharist was also the one who interpreted what had been read. Worship was one of the places where the Church said what the Scriptures meant.
The Liturgy of St. James shows the shape in its own text. The priest recalls the Lord who, "in the night in which He was betrayed, nay, rather delivered Himself up for the life and salvation of the world," took the bread, and the people answer Amen to the words of institution, which end with the command to do this in remembrance and the declaration that the Lord's death is shown forth until he comes.[^lit-james-inst] The worshipper hears what Paul says he received and delivered, in the setting where Paul delivered it. The Creed has its place in the same service, and the invocation names the Spirit as the one who spoke in the Scriptures.[^lit-james-creed] The Divine Liturgy is the weekly occasion on which the Church confesses and receives what she has been handed.
Defending the images, the Seventh Council says in its Decree that it keeps "unchanged all the ecclesiastical traditions handed down to us, whether in writing or verbally," The Decree 6.1 and that the teaching of the holy Fathers, which is the tradition of the Catholic Church, is strengthened by the honor paid to the image, and that in this the bishops follow Paul and the apostolic company in "holding fast the traditions which we have received." The Decree 7.4 The Decree 7.5[^nic2-pauline]
John of Damascus puts the same conviction in his own words: "As the written Gospel has been preached in the whole world, so has it been an unwritten tradition in the whole world to represent in image Christ, the incarnate God, and the saints, to adore the Cross, and to pray towards the east." Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons — PART II 0.485 Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons — PART II 0.486 Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons — PART II 0.487[^dam-2-emp] Both the Council and John treat a practice found throughout the Church as testimony to what the Church was taught.
Councils and the Mind of the Church
Someone has to say what Tradition contains, and the Fathers answer that the Church says it together, in council. Athanasius tells the Arians that the Council of Nicaea committed to writing "not your doctrines, but that which from the beginning those who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word have handed down to us. For the faith which the Council has confessed in writing, that is the faith of the Catholic Church." De Decretis 6.49 De Decretis 6.50[^ath-decr27]
The Seventh Council, in its letter to the emperors, writes that it has "carefully traced the traditions of the Apostles and Fathers," and, being of one mind and understanding the harmonious tradition of the Catholic Church, stands in perfect harmony with the six councils before it.[^nic2-harmony]
The system by which doctrine was secured through councils, McGuckin says, "served to extend the earlier concept of the apostolic tradition, with the respective refinements of conciliar and patristic theology as part of it," and he calls it constitutive of the particular way Orthodoxy sees how Christian doctrine is maintained from age to age.[^mcg-councils] Councils, on this account, work inside Tradition.
Vincent says the same when he writes that the Church, roused by the novelties of heretics, has by her councils "consigned to posterity in writing what she had received from those of olden times only by tradition." Commonitory 23.37[^vin-23]
John of Damascus, writing against the emperor's ban on the images, says that he cannot be persuaded that the Church is set in order by imperial edicts but "by patristic traditions, written and unwritten." Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons — PART II 0.483 Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons — PART II 0.484 The Church, he says, has its pastors, preachers, and teachers of ecclesiastical law, and the emperor has not received the power to bind and loose.[^dam-2-emp] The wider history of the Ecumenical Councils, Nicaea I and Nicaea II among them, shows the principle at work, and St. John of Damascus places this episode among the rest of his life and writings.
Polemics
The Lord's Words About Tradition
The first objection comes from the Lord's own mouth. Jesus asked the Pharisees why they transgress the commandment of God "because of your tradition" (Matthew 15.3; compare Mark 7.13), and Paul warns the Colossians against a philosophy that follows the tradition of men and not Christ (Colossians 2.8). If the Lord and the apostle condemned tradition, why should a Christian trust any?
The same Paul commends the traditions he delivered (1 Corinthians 11.2) and says that he received them from the Lord (1 Corinthians 11.23), and the difference lies in where each tradition comes from and what it does to the commandment of God. Chrysostom, reading Matthew 15, observes that the hand-washing the Pharisees pressed on the disciples "had no shade of contrariety to the law," Homilies on Matthew — Homily 51 2.17 and that Jesus therefore turned to another tradition of theirs, one opposed to the law, which taught the young to call what they owed their parents a gift to God.[^chrys-mt51] The Lord's test is whether a tradition sets aside what God commanded. Chrysostom's reading of Paul, quoted above, supplies the other half, that whoever hands on the gospel is to "introduce nothing from one's self," and Vincent's charge to the Church's teachers, to teach "still the same truths which you have learned," applies the same measure.
Two Reformation Texts
The Reformation produced answers from the other direction, and two of its texts can be read here. Huldrych Zwingli, in the Sixty-Seven Articles that he issued for the First Zurich Disputation of 1523, says that he has preached them as based on the inspired Scriptures and that where he has misunderstood them he will be taught better, "but only from said Scriptures." The preface makes the Scriptures the only court of appeal even for correcting the preacher, and the first article follows from it: "All who say that the Gospel is invalid without the confirmation of the Church err and slander God."[^zwingli] In a later article he teaches that in the Gospel one learns that human doctrines and decrees do not aid salvation.
Zwingli's articles are one Reformed voice and do not speak for every Reformation confession. The first article is aimed at the claim that the Gospel needs the Church's confirmation, and the Orthodox texts above do not use that language. They speak of the Gospel being received: it reached the churches through the apostles' preaching, the churches handed on the books, and the right reading of them is the reading the Church received. Athanasius grants that the Scriptures are sufficient to declare the truth, though in the same sentence he values the teachers who explain them, and Damascus seeks nothing beyond what the Scriptures deliver while holding to unwritten tradition as well. The disagreement with Zwingli turns on the Church's part in that handing-on.
The Lutheran Augsburg Confession of 1530 speaks of traditions in its own terms. It says that for the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree about the teaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments, and that human traditions, meaning rites and ceremonies instituted by men, need not be the same everywhere.[^augsburg-7] It teaches that usages which can be observed without sin and serve good order in the Church ought to be observed, while human traditions instituted to propitiate God, to merit grace, and to make satisfaction for sins are opposed to the Gospel.[^augsburg-15] At the end of its articles of faith it claims that in the sum of its doctrine "there is nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or from the Church of Rome as known from its writers."[^augsburg-21] The Confession presents itself as a witness to the faith of the Church Catholic. Sola Scriptura treats the doctrine, and Martin Luther, John Calvin, and The Reformation give the history.
Rome on Written and Unwritten Traditions
The Council of Trent speaks of the sources in its fourth session, in 1546. It says that the truth and discipline of the gospel "are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us," and it receives both the books and the traditions with equal piety and reverence.[^trent-4]
The same session's second decree forbids anyone, in matters of faith and morals, to interpret the Scripture against the sense that the Church has held, or "even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers."[^trent-4-interp] Trent's wording overlaps with the Orthodox texts above at several points, since they too speak of unwritten tradition received from the apostles, of the consent of the Fathers, and of the Church's interpretation. The Roman texts cited here are Trent and Florence, and neither sets out a Roman account of how doctrine develops.
The Council of Florence, in its decree for the Greeks, defined, with the approbation of the holy general council, that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, and it defined in addition that "the explanation of words 'Filioque' for the sake of declaring the truth and also because imminent necessity has been lawfully and reasonably added to the Creed."[^florence] Florence is a conciliar definition.
On the Orthodox side, McGuckin's complaint concerns the original insertion of the clause into the Creed, which he says was made "on the authority of the pope alone (for the West)" and so looked to the Orthodox like a single bishop adjudicating apostolic tradition. The Eastern Church, he says, would not allow any single bishop, however exalted, to hold that role, and the Church's judgment belonged to the larger synods, whose results had then to be presented to the faithful for acceptance.[^mcg-filioque] The Filioque sets out the dispute in full.
Can Tradition Overrule Scripture?
The last worry is that the Orthodox account gives the Church power over the Bible. The Synod of Jerusalem states plainly that the Church's witness is "not of inferior authority" to that of the Divine Scriptures, and an opponent will count that as parity. The synod's reason is that one and the same Holy Spirit is the author of both, and the Church, it says, speaks from the Spirit of God, who is her teacher. Athanasius defends the Nicene word by showing that it carries the sense of the Scriptures, and John of Damascus grounds the Trinity and the two natures of Christ in what Scripture does say. Vincent puts the authority of the Divine Law first in his two-part rule, and he says that when the Church defines she gives an old article of the faith a new name.[^vin-23] In each case the standard that the Church measures herself against is the apostolic faith, which the Scriptures record and the Church lives.
Nothing in these texts asks a Christian to choose between the Church and the Bible. The apostles preached the gospel and some of them wrote it down. The Church confessed the rule of faith at the font, as Irenaeus and Cyril describe,[^iren-19] [^cyril-5] and received the books and handed down their list, as Cyril and Athanasius say,[^cyril-4] [^ath-fl39-3] and the Spirit who spoke in the Scriptures is invoked in the Liturgy over the bread and wine.[^lit-james-epiclesis] Orthodoxy calls that one life Tradition, and what The Church is, which books belong to the Canon of Scripture, and whether Sola Scriptura can describe the way the faith was kept are all questions about it.
Sources
[^nic2-received]: Second Council of Nicaea (787), Decree (horos), closing anathema (the Book of the Gospels, the image of the cross, the icons, and the relics among the things "which the Church has received"). [^mcg-single]: John A. McGuckin, The Eastern Orthodox Church: A New History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), ch. 1, "Ecclesial Foundations." [^bas-27]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto) 27.66–67. [^vin-2]: Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory 2.4–6. [^aug-manich]: Augustine, Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus 5.6. [^ath-decr13]: Athanasius, De Decretis 13. [^lit-james-creed]: Liturgy of St. James, rubric at the Creed. [^tert-14]: Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 14. [^behr-verb]: John Behr, The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2006), ch. 1, n. 22, on the verb "to hand over/tradition" in 1 Cor 11.23, 15.3, and John 19.30. [^chrys-38]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians 38 (on 1 Cor 15.3). [^chrys-26]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians 26 (on 1 Cor 11.2). [^papias]: Papias of Hierapolis, Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord, fragment 1; Irenaeus, quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.1, and Eusebius's comment at 3.39.2 and 3.39.7. [^clem-42]: Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians 42. [^mcg-confession]: McGuckin, The Eastern Orthodox Church: A New History, ch. 1, "Ecclesial Foundations." [^iren-dem6]: Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 6 (Robinson tr.). [^iren-110]: Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.10.1–3. [^tert-13]: Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 13. [^iren-19]: Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.9.4. [^hipp-21]: Hippolytus of Rome (attributed), Apostolic Tradition 21. [^cyril-5]: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 5.12. [^iren-18]: Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.8.1. [^tert-19]: Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 15–19. [^tert-21-voce]: Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 21. [^tert-37]: Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 37–38. [^vin-26]: Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory 26. [^vin-25]: Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory 25. [^cyril-4]: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 4.33, 35. [^ath-fl39-3]: Athanasius, Festal Letter 39, 3. [^ath-fl39-6]: Athanasius, Festal Letter 39, 6–7. [^carthage]: Third Council of Carthage (397), canon on the canonical Scriptures, as preserved in the African Code of 419 (Westcott's translation). On Hippo (393) and the editing after 418, see Hefele and Westcott as reported at bible-researcher.com, "Third Council of Carthage." [^laodicea]: Council of Laodicea (c. 363), canons 59–60. On the doubt about the authenticity of canon 60, see bible-researcher.com, "Council of Laodicea." [^ath-cg1]: Athanasius, Against the Heathen (Contra Gentes) 1.3. [^dam-exp1]: John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 1.1. [^dositheus]: Synod of Jerusalem (1672), Confession of Dositheus, Decree 2 (Robertson tr, 1899). [^bas-10]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 10.25. [^tert-chaplet]: Tertullian, The Chaplet (De Corona) 3–4. [^dam-1]: John of Damascus, Apologia against Those Who Decry the Holy Images 1 (first treatise). [^dam-12]: John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 4.12 and 4.16. [^chrys-2th]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Second Thessalonians 4 (on 2 Thess 2.15). [^bas-29]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 27.67 and 29.71. [^tert-28]: Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 28. [^vin-3]: Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory 3.7–8. [^ath-decr27-orig]: Athanasius, De Decretis 27. [^nic2-origen]: Second Council of Nicaea (787), synodal letter to the emperors. [^origen-pref]: Origen, On First Principles (De Principiis), Preface 2–10. [^vin-23]: Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory 23.54–59. [^vin-22]: Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory 22.53. [^chalc]: Council of Chalcedon (451), Definition of the Faith. [^eph-7]: Council of Ephesus (431), canon 7. [^nic2-accl]: Second Council of Nicaea (787), acclamations following the Decree. [^ath-decr21]: Athanasius, De Decretis 21. [^ath-decr20]: Athanasius, De Decretis 19–20. [^dam-3]: John of Damascus, Apologia against Those Who Decry the Holy Images 3 (third treatise). [^lit-james-epiclesis]: Liturgy of St. James, the invocation of the Holy Spirit. [^ow-lossky]: OrthodoxWiki, "Holy Tradition" (citing Vladimir Lossky). [^pomaz]: Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Part I, "Our knowledge of God." [^behr-spirit]: Behr, The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death, ch. 1. [^mcg-spirit]: McGuckin, The Eastern Orthodox Church: A New History, ch. 1, "Ecclesial Foundations." [^tert-21]: Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 21. [^mcg-homily]: McGuckin, The Eastern Orthodox Church: A New History, ch. 1, "Ecclesial Foundations," on the homily as an integral part of the Eucharist. [^mcg-engine]: McGuckin, The Eastern Orthodox Church: A New History, ch. 1, "Ecclesial Foundations." [^lit-james-inst]: Liturgy of St. James, the words of institution. [^nic2-pauline]: Second Council of Nicaea (787), Decree (horos). [^dam-2-emp]: John of Damascus, Apologia against Those Who Decry the Holy Images 2 (second treatise). [^ath-decr27]: Athanasius, De Decretis 27. [^nic2-harmony]: Second Council of Nicaea (787), synodal letter to the emperors. [^mcg-councils]: McGuckin, The Eastern Orthodox Church: A New History, ch. 3, "The Classical Patristic Period." [^chrys-mt51]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 51 (on Matt 15.1–9). [^zwingli]: Huldrych Zwingli, The Sixty-Seven Articles (1523), preface and articles 1 and 16, in Selected Works of Huldreich Zwingli, tr. Samuel Macauley Jackson (1901). [^augsburg-7]: Augsburg Confession (1530), Art. VII. [^augsburg-15]: Augsburg Confession (1530), Art. XV. [^augsburg-21]: Augsburg Confession (1530), Art. XXI (the summary that follows the articles of faith). [^trent-4]: Council of Trent, Session IV (8 April 1546), Decree concerning the canonical Scriptures. [^trent-4-interp]: Council of Trent, Session IV (8 April 1546), Decree concerning the edition and use of the sacred books. [^florence]: Council of Florence (1439), Decree for the Greeks (Laetentur caeli), on the procession of the Holy Spirit (Denzinger 691). [^mcg-filioque]: McGuckin, The Eastern Orthodox Church: A New History, ch. 3, "The Classical Patristic Period."